Don’t download Dots if you’ve got a willpower problem

I’ll admit up front that I’m not great at games. After a period in the late ’90s and early ’00s in which I was enamored with first-person shooters, I eventually saw the light and realized my time could be spent in better ways. My lack of success may have had something to do with it, too – there was a reason I chose “The Llama King” as my gaming handle.

These days I’m more apt to be playing casual games on my phone. In my semi-retirement, I spend idle moments with Solitaire City on my iPhone and iPad. I’ll occasionally give a new game a try, but it’s been a long time since I found one that doesn’t get quickly deleted from my devices.

Then, Wednesday, I downloaded Dots, which was released earlier this week by Betaworks and is already the top free game on the iTunes App Store.

Later in the day, I tweeted this:

OMG this Dots iPhone game is incredibly addicting. WHATEVER YOU DO DON’T DOWNLOAD AND PLAY IT. (it’s free)

How addicting is this game? So far, I’m not very good at Dots, but it’s so compelling that I keep coming back for more even though my scores are pitifully low. As I sat on the couch last night with my lovely wife, I begged her to make me stop playing and end my masochism. She was too engrossed in Words with Friends to help me out.

Dots is very simple to play. Use a finger to draw lines connecting dots of the same color that are next to each other, and they disappear from the board, replaced by others that fall from above. Each dot cleared is a point. You have 60 seconds per game to remove as many dots as possible.

The game can be made a little more complex by adding capabilities. As you amass more points, you gain the ability to pause the clock for five seconds, shrink a dot off the board or remove all dots of a certain color. You can also buy these capabilities as in-app purchases, which is how the developers make money on the free game, which also contains no ads.

You can share your scores with others via a leaderboard or through Facebook and Twitter, adding a social aspect to the game. However, if you’re like me, you’ll keep your lame scores to yourself.

Hey, at least I cracked the triple digits!

Because each game is short, and there’s a “Play Again” button appearing at the bottom of the screen when you see your score, it’s easy to say, “OK, one more time” . . . over and over and over again.

If you like casual games, give Dots a try. Then again, if you lack willpower or you have an addictive personality, maybe you shouldn’t.